Domesticity becomes her

SassyB - 17 May 17

I’ve never really enjoyed or even taken an interest in cooking. Cleaning is quite literally a chore for me and I wouldn’t know where to start in a garden. Green-fingered I am not. I’m about as far from a homemaker as you can get.

So that’s why I know I’m very lucky that my other half does 99% of the cooking. He’s fab at it, even if I do hate all the fussy gimmicky pots and pans he uses to serve up on (because I do the dishwasher, see). He also does the garden, he loves doing it and knows all the plants by their Latin names. Really. And… I have a cleaner. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it and more than a little certain we could do without her but it means there are at least two days in the month when my house doesn’t look like a total shit hole, and I like it that way.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t just sit on my backside doing sweet FA. I can chuck some fish fingers and chips in the oven with the best of them, and a clean kitchen is a must. When the mood takes me, I’ll hoover up the kids if they stand still for long enough and I love a bit of bleach. But my strengths lie in planning, organising and booking stuff. If something needs sorting for the family, I’m the one to get it done. That’s the role I’ve always taken on and that’s the role I enjoy doing. But somewhere along the line I have suddenly and inexplicably become the domestic one in the household and I’m not sure I’m down with it.

My biggest concern is that I’ve inadvertently shown my six-year-old stepdaughter that for anything baby, I’m the go-to girl. She bypasses her dad and comes straight to me when the baby has pooed. Or when he’s been sick. Or when he’s crying, or has fallen, or needs anything at all – as though daddies are just there for the fun bits on weekends and mummies are the ones to deal with the every day.

Today, worryingly, she also pointed out the overflowing laundry basket to me and said: “I think you need to do some washing. The laundry basket is blocked up.” At some point, I’ve accidentally demonstrated to her that laundry is women’s work too. When did I do this? How did I do this? I pride myself on forcing my equalitist agenda on her (not a real thing, by the way) yet after just 12 months of being at home with a baby my good work is undone and, suddenly, I’m afraid she sees her dad and I through a 1950s lens – the man brings home the bacon, while the woman is there to cook it.

Before baby I was all about career. So being in the home and doing home-type stuff (because the cleaner is a post-mat leave addition) has been a huge change. And even though I am back at work, for one day less than daddy I’ll admit, I somehow still carry most of the responsibility of the baby; first on the call list at nursery, chief bag packer for the grandparent’s house, the one who makes sure there’s meals in the freezer and snacks in the cupboard, and always, always on top of replacing the many vests that can’t be salvaged from the latest poonami (which could explain why the bulk of the laundry falls firmly at my door too.) So despite there being a very equal balance in our household, apparently I am viewed as the domestic one.

How to tackle it? How to make a little girl see that men can work washing machines too? That babies’ bums can be changed by whoever is holding them at the time (as is the rule in my family)? That my accomplishments are far greater than being able to whack a wash on, prep a bottle and get a bunch of cold stuff out of bags and into the fridge before it spoils, all at one go while holding a two-stone baby… even if that is one of my prouder moments.

I joke, of course, but I do think there is a something to be said for why it is still mums (I suspect) who mostly do home and baby, often alongside work too. Why do we still see it as our ‘role’ even though so many of us (myself included) have a brilliant balance of who does what in the home?

I guess change takes time and society is still adjusting to a new breed of working mums. Perhaps I should take it as a compliment that there’s a little girl who sees me, the woman and the mummy, as the one to solve the problems in the house and not her daddy. Maybe I’m setting a new standard of ‘domesticity’.

In the meantime, I  suppose I could just teach her how to use the washing machine herself.

SassyB

Mum to one and step-mum to another, working and living in the Midlands. I used to write about other people, now I'm trying my hand at writing about myself. Pretty much only had a baby so I could dress someone up in a costume at least once a week...

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